I have been moved to reply to the announcement that all users of the
e-journal Internet Archaeology will now have to pay a fee of 39.50 GBP for
the undoubted pleasure of getting past the contents pages of issues 2-11+.
I am sure that there are good reasons for these decisions, we were told the
original grant ran out and the editorial team were unable to interest other
potential financers in the significance of the project. We have seen the
requests for opinions from users. We are told that the costs of running it
are high. I am sure this is all true.
I also have no doubts that when access was free, IA was a very useful and
important tool; it allowed all potential readers access to all sorts of (and
one might also say assorted) information on different topics to anyone with
a web connection at any time and at minimal cost. This surely was the whole
idea of an e-journal in the first place. And a very good idea it is. There
is no denying that in the form of an e-journal it is possible to present
data in new ways, searchable, hyperlinked, one could put in multimedia
presentations and so on. But then, one can do all these things on a normal
website. And access to these is free.
One justification for an e-journal was the relatively low cost of
dissemination of information in this way compared with the costs of paper
publication. This then allowed IA to accept for 'publication' material in a
form which would - for example by reason of its length - be difficult to
find a place for in a conventional paper journal. The recent announcement of
the "e-monograph" "Behaviour and belief in mortuary ritual: attitudes to
the disposal of the dead in southern Britain 3500bc-AD43" by Peter Bristow
is a case in point. From the blurb, it appears that this is a work which has
already been published by conventional means, and the main justification of
republishing it on the Web given by the journal editors seems to be that one
can search it by computer instead of the conventional way using one's own
eyes. Nowhere is it explained though why this information has to be
published in IA and not as a separate website. The logic of republishing in
this form of something of this size already available in another medium form
escapes me when it is accompanied by a statement to the effect that "this
is all getting too expensive to provide the service we have up to now". This
seems to me a rather unfortunate juxtaposition.
The imposition of subscriptions to access articles in former numbers raises
a number of issues, what about the authors who submitted articles to issues
2-10 under the impression that they were contributing to a journal which
would be freely accessible, only to find that access is now closed to the
elite few who have another free forty quid to fork out on journal
subscriptions on top of what they already subscribe to (by definition, all
professionals or institutions)? Some of these articles have been added as
links to a number of websites (including those of the original authors
themselves) but are no longer accessible from those websites. I wonder why
(apart from the obvious financial benefits) the decision was taken to change
the status of issues that were already in the public domain and not impose
the new tariffs from issue 11?
What future then is there for a true e-journal, one which will carry
articles of a high quality, peer reviewed and disseminated via the web to
any and all who may care to read and download them? Will the imposition of a
fee for the use of IA encourage or hinder its use? Is the format of
e-journal available only to subscribers a viable proposition in competition
with individual websites? While I wish IA every success in its attempts to
remain solvent, somehow I am pessimistic about its future.
Paul Barford
----- Original Message -----
From: Judith Winters <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, November 23, 2001 4:44 PM
Subject: Mortuary ritual - Internet Archaeology 11 opens
> Internet Archaeology is proud to announce that Issue 11 has opened with:
>
> "Behaviour and belief in mortuary ritual: attitudes to the disposal of the
> dead in southern Britain 3500bc-AD43" by Peter Bristow
>
> http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue11/bristow_index.html
>
> The aim of this research was to identify the elements contributing to
> mortuary ritual, and to analyse the purposes and meanings underlying
> mortuary activity. The author also sought to compare changes in patterns
> of behaviour and belief over time, for and between the south-west, south
> and south-east areas of Southern Britain.
>
> The article (or rather electronic monograph) summarises and analyses
> prehistoric burial sites in Southern Britain from the Earlier Neolithic
> c.3500bc through to AD43 (date of the Roman Invasion).
>
> Originally published in print, this electronic version makes the reader's
> ability to search and re-analyse the sheer volume of accompanying data
> infinitely easier. The publication consists of a searchable database of
> over *1700* sites on which the study was based and includes a summary
> of every site.
>
> The gazetteer of sites has been constructed so that it can be searched by
> keyword or by attribute (such as orientation, location, ritual activity,
> treatment of the body, season of deposition, type of grave goods and even
> evidence for type of death). It can also be searched geographically - by
> county, by NGR co-ordinates - or even by author.
>
> The publication also contains a separate bibliographic database of over
> 2700 references.
>
> An essential resource for all students of European prehistory, the sheer
> scale of this study and the quality and quantity of data available for
> re-use and further analysis make this a particularly important publication
> in Internet Archaeology.
>
> Please note that access to Internet Archaeology is now by subscription
> only. See http://intarch.ac.uk/subscriptions.html for full details.
>
> Regards,
> Judith
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> Judith Winters, Editor - Internet Archaeology http://intarch.ac.uk
> Department of Archaeology, University of York,
> King's Manor, YO1 7EP, UK
>
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